


Strange Currencies

by disasterwyatt



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Heartbreak, Hurt, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24665200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterwyatt/pseuds/disasterwyatt
Summary: After Leslie’s campaign for councilwoman is announced, Ben’s about to drive home alone and, god damn, it hurts.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Strange Currencies

**Author's Note:**

> The song, Strange Currencies by R.E.M always stuck with me as one of Benslie’s songs and I’m, much like Ben Wyatt himself, a huge fan of R.E.M, and I just know that he'd lean on their music to help him through their breakup.  
> (I also recommend you have a listen to the song too, mainly because it’s a beautiful song, but also to feel poor Ben’s heartache)

_“Okay, look, I’m gonna make this really easy for you. Um - it’s not you, it’s me. I’m not ready for a commitment, I just don’t like you anymore and I know it’s hard to hear that but you’re boring, and frankly, you disgust me.”_

-

He really wished he’d meant some of that. Maybe that would take away the stinging from his eyes, rimmed with tears.

Ben had held it together, as much as he physically could, as he watched his Leslie make her campaign debut.

Her hair glowing in the sun’s final gleams of the evening as it crept closer to the horizon. His love and admiration for that goddess of a woman evident from his grinning ear-to-ear. And it’s precisely that love and admiration that makes everything hurt ten times more for Ben. He wanted to be the one to stand next to her as she made this leap.

The walk back to Ben’s car was short, but it felt like hours as he got further away from the reason he stayed in Pawnee. The one thing keeping him here.

He climbed into his Saturn, watching others pull their cars out and drive away, until he was the only one left. Alone again. Like the 18 year-old mayor of Partridge, Minnesota.

And that’s when he loses it. Clutching the steering wheel, Ben rests his forehead against it and heaves, tears spilling from his eyes with his knuckles turning white. His breathing turns shaky as he struggles to piece himself back together. The pieces don’t exactly fit together and he tries to accept that he may be broken for a while. But that’s okay. She’s going to be alright, and that’s all that mattered. His fumbling hands reach for the glove compartment, pulling out a CD. Monster by R.E.M. One of his favourites. Maybe, this could make him feel something.

He skips to track six, Strange Currencies. The guitar reverberates through his car, as his breathing begins to slow and find an even rhythm.

_“I don’t know why you’re mean to me / when I call on the telephone”_

The corner of his mouth quirks up, with the words ‘Mean Ben’ ringing through his thoughts. The Freddy Spaghetti concert had really cemented their relationship. Maybe she had felt nothing at the time, but there was an unforgivable force at play when Ben couldn’t resist saving the concert for her. That’s when he truly recognised her passion, and he wanted to see how deep that passion could burn. 

_“and I don’t know what you mean to me / but I want to turn you on, turn you up, figure you out, I want to take you on”_

Falling in love with her had been the most selfish thing he’s ever done. Just a bit more selfish than opening a giant winter sports complex in his hometown. It endangered their careers, but kissing her outside Chris’ office after their road trip had felt like the one thing he had gotten right since his mayoral debut.

_“These words, ‘you will be mine’ / These words, ‘you will be mine’ all the time”_

He slips his fingers through his hair, making it stick up in the wrong places as he fell deeper into the spiral of memories. He ached for her touch. Anything she could give him, he'd take it. They'd spent nights in silence sometimes, sprawled out along Leslie's couch with her head on his chest listening to his heartbeat. He'd draw lazy circles on her skin, wherever he could. He could feel her breathing and he'd wish to stay in that moment forever. 

_“The fool might be my middle name / But I’d be foolish not to say / I’m going to make whatever it takes, bring you up, call you down, sign your name, secret love, make it rhyme, take you in, and make you mine”_

He wishes they could have just said screw it and made their relationship work, but he couldn't ask her to risk her campaign for him. If she were the one to propose this idea, he'd take it in a heartbeat. No questions asked. He'd take the punishments, he'd take it all for her. 

_“These words, ‘you will be mine’ / These words, ‘you will be mine’ all the time”_

He remembers the Li’l Sebastian memorial and the way she had looked at him after she’d spoken to her campaign managers. The fear and upset in her eyes that, at the time, he was convinced was due to Li’l Sebastian’s death. He didn’t understand the love for the tiny horse but anything that Leslie loved, soon became something that he wanted to love too. She’d reciprocated this feeling whenever he’d play his favourite music. He’d catch her humming his favourite songs under her breath whenever she was doing something small like brushing her teeth or making waffles. The thought crushes him, knowing that there are some songs that he’ll never be able to listen to without Leslie in mind.

_“I tripped and fell, and did I fall / What I want to feel, I want to feel it now”_

This was never his style. He never became attached in the cities he visited, he never planned to stay long. Mainly because the locals could never bare themselves to look at Ben without hurling a few insults towards him at least once during his stay. But Pawnee had been different, and now he’s committed to the town as much as he was committed to her. Pawnee was a very special place because it was home to Leslie Knope, the future councilwoman. There was no point in fleshing out the possibility of her losing the city council vote because, simply, it was never going to happen. She lived and breathed Pawnee and anyone who could vote for someone other than her had no respect for their town.

_“You know with love come strange currencies / and here is my appeal”_

On the night of Andy and April's wedding, he knew he was going to stay in Pawnee because he had to break the vicious cycle of auditing that he'd perpetuated for years. So when she told him to stay in Pawnee, to help her create something great and serve the community firsthand, he knew it'd be hard to keep himself away from her and he found himself falling for her even with the understanding that their love was going to be suppressed by rules and regulations.

_“I need a chance, a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance / a word, a signal, a nod, a little breath, just to fool myself, to catch myself, to make it real, real”_

In any other circumstances, they could have been happy together. She had admitted to him that she liked that no one knew about them and they got to sneak around but Ben desperately wanted to show her off to Pawnee. He wanted to take her to JJ's diner and be able to wipe the whipped cream from her mouth without the fear of a scandal that could cost her hopes and dreams. He wanted to hold her hand through Ramsett Park, fingers locked together, brushing his thumb across the back of her hand. He knew she loved the wildflower mural on the second floor of city hall, and he wanted to take her to see real wildflowers without having to claim it as a business trip to Chris. He needed to her to know that everything he felt for her was real and raw.

_“These words, ‘you will be mine’ / These words, ‘you will be mine’ all the time”_

And now reality was setting in. He could reminisce all he wanted but nothing was going to take away the fact that they were forbidden from one another. It was agonisingly unfair, and Ben swears that this amount of pain is incomparable. Emotionally, he's destroyed but physically, he just wishes his heart could simmer down and accept their fate just as he had.

_“These words, ‘you will be mine’ / These words, they haunt me, hunt me down, catch in my throat, make me pray, say, love’s confined, on Earth”_

Tomorrow, he'd drive to work alone. He'd eat lunch alone, he'd punch numbers into his calculator and sign forms alone, because being too close to Leslie right now would hurt too much. He knows that he'd never be able to speak to her without his eyes flickering to her gorgeous lips and thinking about whether they tasted different to the last time he kissed her. It's all too painful to admit that he'd have to learn how to live without Leslie. She was his lifeline from a history plagued by his impeachment and roughly forty towns and cities across Indiana cursing his name as he hacked their budgets for a living.

The guitar fades into the background and he exhales, screwing his eyes shut, in the hopes this was just a bad dream, and he’d wake up next to her. The album continues onto track 7 and he knows it’s real.

He'll get over her in time, but for now he'll be haunted by the possibility of what they could have been. He opens his eyes, pained and red, puts his keys into the ignition and pulls away from the car park.


End file.
